


Breakfast of Champions

by kutsushita



Category: Ookiku Furikabutte | Big Windup!
Genre: Gen, Missing Scene, Slice of Life, crushes and not having them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-22
Updated: 2013-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-05 14:58:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1095360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kutsushita/pseuds/kutsushita
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Abe and Mihashi plan and cook breakfast for day six of the pre-Fall Nishiura training camp. </p><p>Also featuring Abe Takaya's emotional constipation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breakfast of Champions

**Author's Note:**

  * For [softintelligence](https://archiveofourown.org/users/softintelligence/gifts).



Abe leans back and let his eyes drift closed, full of food and satisfaction. _This cooking thing is definitely getting easier,_ he thinks. They've managed to survive five days of cooking together without Mihashi injuring himself, and actually, Abe has been forced to accept the fact that his pitcher possesses a great deal more skill in the kitchen than he does. They've even gotten through the past two days without Shinooka's help with no real difficulty, and haven't had another incident like the itchy one with the nagaimo.

Momokan's commanding voice interrupts Abe's self-satisfied reverie. "Abe, Mihashi!"

Abe's eyes snap open immediately and he spies Mihashi's jump from the edge of his field of vision. "Yes, coach?"

Momokan leans toward the two of them over the table. "Good job with the food again today. Have you already figured out your menu for tomorrow morning?"

Abe scratches at the hair behind his ear. "Ah, well, we were going to talk about it after the practice game today, so we haven't done it yet. But we're probably going to do a mix of some of the things we've already cooked so far." Abe feels pretty pleased with himself for managing the gyouza this morning without Mihashi's instruction, and he's considering asking Mihashi if he can attempt the soup all by himself tomorrow. Things should go pretty smoothly.

Momokan tilts her head and grins. "Well, how do you feel about trying something new?"

Abe freezes. "Huh?"

"Mrs. Hanai called me before breakfast this morning and said she and some of the other parents were planning to bring us a bunch of mackerel for our final day of camp, so I wondered if you and mihashi wanted to use them for breakfast."

Abe's skin feels kind of clammy. "Ah, well—" _I don't know anything about cooking fish!_ he thinks, and is about to say out loud, but gets intterupted by Mihashi's exclamation of:

"M-mackerel!"

Abe turns to the side; Mihashi's mouth is hanging agape, a bit of drool already collecting at the corner, and his eyes are wide and sparkly.

"Mihashi, do you know how to cook fish?" Momokan asks.

"I... I..."

Mihashi has been pretty handy in the kithcen so far, but Abe still has his doubts about the extent of his pitcher's skills. "Isn't that harder than what we've been making?" Hopefully Momokan will give them an easy out.

"No, it shouldn't be too hard," Momokan says, and Abe feels his hopes vanish in a puff of smoke. "The fish will already be gutted and scaled, and the kitchen has a pretty good-sized broiler, so you can cook them in there and you won't have to worry about them falling apart." She smiles and looks at Mihashi. "So Mihashi, do you think you can handle it?"

Abe frowns a little at Momokan going around him to ask Mihashi instead, then reconsiders. _Well, it's true that he's better at cooking than I am. But he probably doesn't know how to cook fish anyway. Mihashi will say no or sit there flapping his mouth uncertainly and we'll just make the same things we've already been cooking instead._

"We-we can do it!" Mihashi exclaims loudly, his drool built up and now dangling off his lip.

 _Miha—!_ Abe grinds his teeth together and curses internally. _Of all the times for him to be filled with confidence, it has to be now? Does he really know what he's doing, or is he just thinking with his stomach?_

Momokan beams. "All right then! I'll let Mrs. Hanai know to bring them by for the morning." She pushes up against the table to stand. "All right, everyone!" she calls while striding away from the table, "Be ready to go in ten minutes!"

Abe turns to Mihashi, frowning. "Hey, are you really sure you can cook fish? Have you actually done it before?"

"I, I've watched my... parents... do it!" 

_Argh,_ Abe thinks. Mihashi still looks completely unconcerned, but as suspected he doesn't have personal experience cooking mackerel. "Well, that's not really the same as doing it yourself, is it? Is it complicated?"

Mihashi just looks more determined. "I-I can do it! It's not... hard."

"Well..." Abe frowns. _I don't know if I really believe him, but I have been pretty impressed with how well Mihashi has done in the kitchen so far, I guess. Maybe I should try to put more faith in him._ He smooths his expression out and locks eyes with Mihashi. "Well, okay. I don't know what I'm doing, so I'll be counting on you to make sure we get it right, okay?"

Mihashi visibly inflates and begins vibrating in excitement, fists clenched tightly in front of his chest. "Y-yes! You can count on me, Abe-kun!"

The edge of Abe's mouth quirks up. _Well, knowing this guy, whenever he gets this enthusiastic about something there's no way he'll quit trying before he succeeds._ "Yeah, I know," he says. "Well, we should go get ready for practice. Do you want to practice your windup with me in the bullpen again today during the game?"

"Y-yeah!" Mihashi perks up even more at the reminder of the practice game.

"Okay, sounds good," says Abe. He looks around. _Ah. Everyone else is probably already ready to go._ He presses down on the table to take the weight off his leg as he gets to his feet. He walks to the door and calls, "Come on, let's go," over his shoulder. He doesn't have to look to know Mihashi is following him.

~

He and Mihashi just barely make it in time for the team to depart; the school they're playing is within running distance, so Mihashi and the rest of the team runs while Abe rides his bicycle. After they arrive and start unpacking their equipment, Tajima bounds over to Mihashi, protectors still only half-fastened.

"Hey Mihashi! So what was Momokan talking to you and Abe about after breakfast?"

Mihashi is still trying to catch his breath from the run, but perks up at the reminder of the earlier conversation. "Ahh! She, what we're cooking, tomorrow! And the moms... got fish!"

Tajima grins and slings his arm around Mihashi's shoulder. "Ahh, you're going to cook fish for breakfast tomorrow? Awesommmme! I can't wait! Fish is so good!"

Abe twitches a little listening to their conversation. As usual, he has no idea how Tajima always manages to decipher Mihashi's speech so effortlessly.

Mihashi nods energetically. "Y-yeah! I love... fish!"

"What kind of fish did they get?" Tajima asks, licking his lips. "I like tuna."

"M-me too! But, it's... mackerel."

"Ahh, mackerel's good too though!"

Abe clears his throat. "So, Tajima, what are your plans today for the lead?"

Tajima turns to look at him. "Ah, Abe! Same as before, pretty much. I'm not going to try anything unusual, just going to keep practicing catching for Mihashi from the windup!" He reaches down to finish tying his protective pads. "Are you going to catch in the bullpen again today?"

Abe nods. "Yeah, that's the plan."

Tajima grins widely and pauses wish his hands next to his leg protector. "Are you going to put that nut protector on your knee again? Ha!"

"Well, if you'd rather keep catching all fall instead of focusing on your batting, I guess I could keep sitting out..."

Mihashi looks a little alarmed, but Tajima rolls his eyes at the jab. "Yeah right, Abe, you're not going to fool anyone with that. But it doesn't change the fact that you've still got a nut cup on your knee!" He cackles uproariously, and next to him Mihashi trembles slightly, obviously trying to hold in giggles. Abe twitches and ignores both of them. Tajima abruptly stops laughing again to continue, "Besides! I like catching for Mihashi!" He turns to the pitcher and grins broadly. "We're going to have fun working together again today, right, Mihashi?"

Mihashi nods with his entire upper body. "Yeah! It'll be fun!"

"All right, let's go!"

The energetic battery runs out onto the field together, leaving Abe frowning in the dugout. He wants to run out onto the field with them too. It's great now that he can finally catch Mihashi's pitches again, but catching in the bullpen just isn't the same as catching an actual pitch from the mound with someone in the batter's box...

Abe sighs and gets out his clipboard. Time to take notes on Tajima's pitch-calling, and maybe start writing up tomorrow's breakfast menu.

~

The practice game goes pretty smoothly. Abe still can't stand being stuck on the sidelines, but has to admit that Tajima's been improving as a catcher. He should be able to pull them through the newcomer's tournament.

They return to Nishiura after the practice game for lunch. When they've finished their bentos, everyone is goading Hanai about the drawing for the tournament. Abe tunes them out and turns his body sideways. "Mihashi."

Mihashi starts a little at his name, but not as much as he would have even a week or two ago. Abe mentally clenches his fist in self-congratulation. _I might not be Tajima, but still, things are definitely better between us now than they used to be._

"Want to sort out the rest of the menu for tomorrow?" Abe asks.

Mihashi responds with no hesitation. "Okay!"

Abe pulls out the notepad he'd started making notes on earlier during the practice game. "Okay, well... We've had yogurt and rice every day so far so we might as well keep those again. How about the soup?"

Mihashi's eyes light up. "I... want potatoes... this time!"

"Potatoes? Oh. You mean in the soup?"

"Yes! Because we have.. a lot of them!"

Abe nods, remembing the large box in the kitchen. "Okay, tonjiru with potatoes." He jots it down on the pad and looks up again. "So, you said you know how to make the fish, right?"

"F-fish is easy!" Mihashi lifts up his hand to count the steps off on his fingers. "We just need to... soak, sake, and salt, and then... you cook it!"

 _Well,_ Abe thinks, _at least I'm getting better at understanding him when he's talking about cooking._ "How long does it take the cook the fish?"

"N-not long! But, but you have to soak it. First..."

Abe frowns. "Huh? What do you do first?"

"Be-before you cook it!"

 _Okay, maybe not all the time._ Abe grinds his teeth together, but rather than yelling, runs back over what Mihashi just said, and suddenly it makes sense. "Oh. You mean you have to soak the fish before you cook it?"

"Right!"

 _Yes!_ "Ah, how long does that take?"

"Ha-half an hour. I... think."

Abe pulls the cookbook out and begins flipping through it. "Okay, well, we can check it in the book or look it up online if we have to. Do we need anything else for the fish?"

Mihashi leans over to look at the pictures of food in the book over Abe's shoulder, his mouth watering. "Ah— Daikon, and... soy sauce!"

Abe frowns thoughtfully as he continues flipping through the book. "Hmmm. Well..." He feels something drip on his shoulder and turns to the side. "Hey! Don't drool on me!"

Mihashi jumps and immediately scoots back. Abe kicks himself for yelling, but then glances back down at the book and sees the solution. "Hey, there's a lot of daikon in the kitchen, right? If we're already using some for the fish, then for a side vegetable, how about this salad?" He holds the book out between them.

Sure enough, Mihashi is immediately drawn back in, forgetting Abe's raised voice when presented with more images of food. "Y-yeah! That looks good."

"Okay. How about fruit? There were a lot of nashi pears, right?"

"Yeah! Pears are good. But we'll... have to peel them."

"Okay. Well, that's everything, then. And we can have juice to drink like before."

Mihashi nods, looking enthused. "Okay!"

Abe grins with one side of his mouth, pleased that they once again managed to come up with a menu on their own. "Right. Well, I'll finish writing this down, so you can go join in practice with the others now."

Mihashi's shoulders give a surprised jerk and he looks around to see the others have already left for the field. "Yes!" he shouts, jumping up and bounding out of the room.

Abe stays seated and finishes paging through the cookbook, jotting down the list of ingredients they'll need. _Have to make sure to write the full names so we don't get confused again like with the yamaimo._ He puts the finishing touches on on it, thinks, _All right!_ and heads off to start his strength-building weight exercises.

~

Abe blinks groggily into consciousness as his phone alarm blares in his ear. He shuts it off and drags himself up off his futon, then shuffles over to Mihashi to shake him awake. Mihashi eventually rolls over, blinking at him, and Abe holds up his phone screen again to show Mihashi the time as has become their ritual.

The two of them make their way shuffling and yawning toward the kitchen. After switching on the lights and staring blankly at the room for a few moments Abe says, "I'll get the rice started."

He pulls out the musenmai and starts measuring it, feeling proud of himself for the moment when he would have tried to wash the rice before. _Now I know better!_

Mihashi kneels on the ground holding the list Abe made the day before, pulling assorted vegetables out of the produce box. "Ah..." Mihashi says, and Abe sleepily looks over to figure out the reason for the sound.

 _Oh, the nagaimo,_ Abe thinks. He finds the drawer that Shinooka showed them before and rummages around in it, picking out a pair of rubber kitchen gloves. "Mihashi," he calls, and when Mihashi looks up he tosses the gloves over to him.

"T-Thanks!" says Mihashi. Abe returns to filling the rice cooker.

Cooking the fish goes surprisingly smoothly after all. It takes them a little bit of time to find the cooking sake, but they finally locate it behind assorted bottles of vinegar. The whole fish looks really weird, and even though he's eaten whole fish plenty of times before Abe feels like there must be something more they're supposed to do in order to make it edible.

But apparently all they really need to do is soak it in the sake and salt it, then let it sit for half an hour. In the meantime they cut vegetables for the soup and salad. Abe insists on preparing the soup himself this time, so Mihashi peels the pears.

The soup is safely simmering when the timer they set for the fish goes off. "What now?" Abe asks.

"Now we... wipe the salt off... and then broil them!"

"Okay." Abe watches Mihsahi demonstrate first before attempting it himself. It doesn't take them long, and then they put all the fish in the commercial grade broiler together.

Mihashi sets the timer. "Now, we... wait!"

Abe nods and leans back against the counter, taking his weight off his knee. He's mostly relieved this week of cooking is over because it was a lot of work, but on the other hand he's pretty glad they had the experience. _Our communication really has improved just over the course of this week. And Mihashi was a lot more capable than I thought he was going to be..._ Abe grits his teeth and clenches his fists. _Did Momokan know from the beginning that things would turn out like this? How does she do it every time?!_

"Ah— Abe-kun!" Mihashi says suddenly, breaking the silence.

Abe blinks out of his train of thought and stares at Mihashi. _Whoa, was Mihashi just thinking the same thing I was? Is Momkan actually THAT MUCH of a genius that she even has us thinking in sync now?!_ "Yeah?"

Mihashi twists his hands in his shirt, staring down at the floor. "W-who... ah... d-do you... do you..."

Abe face falls into a wry expression. _Well, the delivery is still the same. Although he did have an easier time being direct when we were talking about cooking!_ He holds himself back, forcing himself to wait until Mihashi finishes.

"You... have a c-crush on?"

"Huhhhh?" Abe exclaims loudly. _Not what I was thinking at ALL! Where in the heck is this coming from?_

Mihashi's mouth flaps frantically open and closed as he turns from side to side, wringing his shirt continuously with his hands. "Th-the other night! And, we were sleeping, before, and, and Sakaeguchi said that's... said that's... what you talk about... at camp..."

"What? Sakaeguchi brought that up?" _Well, that's certainly something Sakaeguchi would talk about..._ "When was that? During practice?"

Mihashi shakes his head furiously. "N-no, when we were, the other night, when we were going to sleep."

 _Ah, I must have already been asleep or not paying attention._ "So why were you asking about it again?"

Mihashi flushed and grasped absently at the air to the sides of his body with his hands. "B-because Sakaeguchi said-"

Abe attempts to backtrack in the conversation. "Oh, right. He said that's what you talk about at camp or something." Abe pauses. The whole conversation topic is very strange, but when he thinks about it, he realizes this is one of the very few times Mihashi has actuallly tried to start a conversation with him, especially about something other than baseball. Abe flushes a little and feels a jolt of pleasure shoot through him. _I guess this means Mihashi is trying to connect with me? Even though it's an awkward topic, I should probably keep the conversation going..._ "Ah, so, um..." He pauses, then mentally shrugs. "Do you, then? Have a crush on someone?"

"Ah!" Mihashi turns beet red, steam seeming to rise out of the top of his head. "Ah! Ah!"

Abe cringes at Mihashi's embarrassed display. _I should have known better than to ask; of course Mihashi would be really awkward about it, even though he's the one who brought up the topic. Well, I guess there are stil other ways of keeping the conversation going._ He clears his throat. "I don't have a crush on anyone. I mean, it wouldnt really be practical anyway. It's not like I'd have time to go on dates or whatever with how much we practice."

Mihashi is still a little pink, but appears to be calming down with the shift of focus to Abe's crushes. "D-did Abe-kun have crushes on anyone before?"

"Nope," Abe says. "I was pretty busy in middle school too, with the seniors and everything. I mean, not like I never noticed girls. But even if I thought about them sometimes, nothing ever happened."

Mihashi leans closer to him. "D-did you, did you ever..."

"What?"

"D-did you ever... tell someone you..." Mihashi flushes slightly redder again. "...liked them?"

"No, I-" Suddenly, as he's thinking about taking someone to a secluded spot and telling them, 'I like you,' Abe is hit with an immediate flashback of the incident from the Mihoshi practice game. He and Mihashi crouched behind the bushes, holding Mihashi's hand and telling him he liked him, and Mihashi saying the same back... Abe feels his face suddenly burning red and he can't stop the vivid memories from flooding back. The feel of Mihashi's callused fingers as he stroked them, feeling the tremors of Mihashi's body extending through his arm and hand... _But that...! We weren't...! That kind of thing isn't...!_

Mihashi looks confused as he peers at Abe's face. "A-Abe-kun...?"

Abe can tell his face is bright red, and can't believe he's getting embarrassed like this in front of Mihashi of all people. He darts his eyes around the kitchen, looking for a distraction and- Right then, one of the timers goes off. "Ah!" He exclaims, a deep sense of relief overwhelming him. "The soup! Time to add the miso, right?"

Mihashi blinks several times. "Ah... Y-yes! And, the fish will be done, soon."

 _Lucky!_ Abe thinks. Then, _Wait, why do I feel so relieved anyway? That... That was just Mihashi! It wasn't a c-confess—_ He scowls and focuses all his concentration on throwing ingredients into the pot to drown out his internal monologue.

"Ah!" Mihashi yelps, waving his hands toward the soup pot. "Careful! The miso... n-not too much!"

~

Despite his best efforts, Abe manages not to ruin the soup.

"Whoa!" cry various teammates once gathered around for breakfast. "Looks great!" "It smells delicious!"

Mihashi once again stumbles through an explanation of the food. "There's soy sauce for the fish if you want it. E-everyone can have one of the fish. And there's the salad, and, peaches... yogurt... as much rice as you want." And then the part Abe made him say. "And Abe made the soup himself, this time."

Mizutani grins gleefully in Abe's direction. "Oh, you finally graduated to making soup, Abe?"

"I don't know if I'm brave enough to try it," Suyama deadpans.

Abe glares at both of them. "Ha ha."

Momokan claps her hands together to gain everyone's attention. "Thank you for making breakfast for us this week, Mihashi and Abe. All right, everyone! Looks good!"

Everyone joins in the chorus and digs into the food.

"Hey, it's actually edible!" someone across the table snarks when sampling the soup.

"Sure, keep it up, see how you like it next time when it's your job to cook breakfast all week," Abe shoots back.

But really, Abe thinks as he shovels food down his throat, he didn't mind it. He learned some new skills, and it'll probably be useful knowing how to cook some things when he ends up living on his own one day. Plus he and Mihashi got to spend some more time together, and...

Abe abruptly chokes on his piece of pear as his mind flashes back to holding hands with Mihashi while saying 'I like you' again. He hopes everyone's too busy stuffing their own faces to look at him because he can tell his face is turning red again. 

_...Well,_ he thinks, _at least if it were Mihashi, it wouldn't matter that we couldn't spend time together doing things because of practice, because we already spend all our time together practicing anyway. So it would actually make a lot of sense in that respect._

Then he stops mid-bite and rewinds his brain. _Wait, what the heck am I thinking?!_

While he's spacing out in that moment, Tajima reaches across the table to try to grab the fish off Abe's plate. 

"Hey!" Abe shouts, blocking Tajima's trajectory with his arm.

"Well if you're just going to sit there staring into space instead of eating it!" Tajima says, grinning at him. 

"Too bad," says Abe, and stuffs the entire remainder of his fish in his mouth. _I definitely needs all the protein I can get, since I need to heal completely so I can catch for Mihashi again in the fall tournament. It's not that long from now. Then we'll really be a battery again._

He turns his head to the side and Mihashi turns and looks back at him, so Abe smiles through his disgustingly huge mouthful of fish. Mihashi smiles back, a little dribble of pear juice running down his chin.

 _Argh, whatever,_ Abe thinks, giving up on battling his own thoughts. _It doesn't matter what kind of relationship Mihashi and I have. We have whatever we have, and it's gotten better, and it's going to keep getting even better from now on. We have a new pitch to learn together, and we'll be back as a real battery soon. We have a whole two years ahead of us._

Abe kept smiling as he chewed his fish, and little bits of it fell out of his mouth onto his plate.

**Author's Note:**

> **THE COMPLETE DAY SIX BREAKFAST MENU:**
> 
> -yogurt  
> -rice  
> -tonjiru with pork belly, potatoes, burdock root, satoimo, mushrooms, carrot, tofu, and seaweed  
> -nashi pears peeled and sliced  
> -daikon and mizuna salad with citrus dressing  
> -broiled mackerel topped with grated daikon  
> -orange juice to drink
> 
>  
> 
> **Bonus ending:**
>
>> Tajima glanced over at Abe and Mihashi smiling at each other like giant losers, with half-chewed fish spilling out of Abe's mouth and pear juice running all over mihashi's chin, and thought to himself, _lol what a pair of loser dorks, just make out already._
>> 
>> THE END


End file.
